What did Moses do wrong? IN THIS WEEK’S TORAH PORTION, Chukat (Numbers 19:1-22:1), Moses disobeys G?d’s command to speak to a rock and thereby produce water for the thirsty Jews and their animals. Instead, Moses – perhaps in grief over…
Tag: There’s a God in My Soup
Religious experience, or at least the experience of religion.
Any god who is mine but not yours, any god concerned with me but not with you, is an idol.”
– Abraham Joshua Heschel
The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”
— Bumpersticker seen this afternoon (2505.21)
Hyphenated Theology
TO ME, GOD IS NOT a Being to be worshipped – but a Presence to be experienced. (YMMV.)
Where Are You?
(Sermon for Parashat Vayikra [Leviticus 1:1-5:26], 4/5/25.) THIS WEEK’S TORAH PORTION, LIKE the entire book of Leviticus it’s taken from, asks: “How do we get close to G?d – and survive?” Leviticus’ answer is excruciatingly detailed – so much so…
Hillel, Adapted
Q: “CAN YOU TEACH ME THE whole Torah in a dozen words or less?” A: “‘Don’t be a jerk.’ The rest is details; now go experience them.”
Silence is the language of God. Everything else is a poor translation.”
— Rumi
Pithyism #5a
OPPOSABLE THUMBS ARE TO HANDS as language is to brains.
365 Names of God: “The One Who Spoke and the World Came Into Being”
THE ONE WHO SPOKE AND THE WORLD CAME INTO BEING expresses a pretty profound metaphor, at least to those students of the Torah unbothered by anthropomorphism. Think about the many possible ways to spin a creation myth: divine entities dreaming…
Looking Out, Looking In
(A recent sermon.) SOMETIMES, A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE CAN be a good thing. A lot of perspective? Even better. That point is illustrated in this week’s Torah reading, when Joseph admonishes his brothers after they fib that their father told them…
Pocket Theology
BEFORE WE BEGIN, LET’S HAVE an agreed-upon definition or two (c. OED, mostly): mystic 1. one who believes that union with or absorption into the Deity or the Absolute, or the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, may…
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
— Thos. Jefferson